WHEN LIFE IS quiet, calm, and serene for no reason, you know something bad is coming. The calm before the storm, they call it. That’s what I feel when I walk up the stairs and go into the kitchen this morning.
The past few days have been quiet enough to hear the voices in my head louder than ever—I’m just kidding, but not really—and I haven’t heard a peep from Whitney. She’s been cooped up in her room like it’s her prison, getting high I’m sure, but there’s something about this time that feels different. I know she’s not dead, because I’ve heard her moving around in there. I heard the familiar sound of her limp body falling onto the bed yesterday, which is always brought on after she injects herself with that poison. I haven’t seen her much though, and that makes me wonder. Today, the house has been silent, and I wonder what Whitney’s up to.
Nonetheless, I’m hungry.
I walk through the messy living room and enter the kitchen. It’s a small space like every other space in this house, but the grossness of it stands out above the rest. The white and light gray tiles on the walls are all coated with some grimy, brownish film that I’ve never been able to identify, though it’s been there as long as I can remember. The linoleum floor is coming up at the entrance to the kitchen, as well as in the center, where a hole has been carved out from the foot traffic, and you can actually see the wood underneath. We’ve got dark gray countertops and white cabinetry, which does a great job of showing off how messy we’ve been our whole lives in this house by leaving streaks of brown, red, yellow, and who-knows-what-color everywhere. There’s no way our fridge isn’t the smallest one on the market, and the stove that never gets cooked on is like the fridge’s tiny twin brother. Just a little taste of heaven.
Leaning over the sink, I rinse out a bowl and grab a box of cereal. To my pleasant surprise, there’s milk in the fridge. I marvel at the sight of it and feel the excitement of not having to eat dry cereal again. The order of it all is typical: bowl, spoon, cereal, milk. I make it all happen in silence and walk into the living room to sit down in the broken recliner. The tiny TV is already on one of the ten channels we have, and I watch some Batman movie while I stuff my mouth with cereal and milk like it’s a celebration. But the silence is short-lived like I knew it would be.
As I swallow my first spoonful of food, my mother comes rushing into the house. I look up at her brown hair resting on top of her head like a bird’s nest, and see the scowl on her could-be-beautiful-if-she-wasn’t-a-junkie face. She has on a white tank top in this frigid weather, coupled with black sweatpants and sandals. She looks ridiculous but truly livid, even at only five-foot-four, and her blue eyes are as cold as the frost on the dying grass in the yard. The second she spots me sitting in the recliner, she walks over to me and knocks the bowl of cereal out of my hand and onto the multi-stained carpet.
“You sonofabitch!” she screams at me, pointing her finger at my nose like I’m a dog. “Do you know what you did to me? Do you know what your little stunt just did? You ruined my life. I’m going to die because of you. Damn it, Solomon. Why did you have to get into it with Davon? Why?”
I take a second and let out an exhale as I look down at the soggy carpet covered with the cereal I planned on enjoying while I watched Batman. The look and thought of the cereal starts up a fire within me that puts my blood on a slow boil.
“Would it surprise you, Whitney, if I told you that I don’t know what you’re talking about?” I say as calmly as I can, while staring at the mess in front of me.
“You don’t know? Are you kidding me? You messed everything up. How could you not know? Davon won’t sell to me now because of what you did to him. I saw his face, Solomon. He said you attacked him and stabbed him in the cheek, now he won’t sell me the medicine I need. How could you? Do you know how hard it is to find someone to sell me my medicine? You’ve ruined everything! I hate you! Goddamn it!”
While Whitney shrieks in front of me loud enough for all of Strawberry Mansion to hear, I just stare at my cereal. I really wanted that cereal, and she knocked it out of my hands. Now it’s a mushy mess soaking into the carpet. It’d be different if I had this luxury all the time—if I ate a multitude of cereals on a regular basis instead of going hungry most mornings in this hellhole. It’d be different if I had a rotating golden carousel of cereals that I chose from every day, and I was spoiled rotten from all the freedom and choices. But none of that is the case. Does she see a freaking carousel of cereals? I don’t think so!
“What am I gonna do now? I need my medicine, and you just had to attack Davon!”
“Is that what he told you, Whitney? That I attacked him?”
“You did!”
“No I didn’t.”
“Yes you did. You ruined everything!”
“Ah, classic Whitney—taking the word of her heroin dealer over the word of her son,” I say, finally peeling my eyes off the carpet and looking up at her. “He wanted to play, Whitney, so we played a game and he lost.” Almost like I can’t control it, I hear myself chuckling at the memory of stabbing poor little Mr. Uninvited—or was is Mr. Nobody?—in the cheek with that box cutter.
“You think this is funny?” Whitney screams, just as she reaches back and slaps me across the face. I feel the sting in my cheek as my head rocks to the side, but I watch her in pure joy as she looks completely defeated by the fact that I’m still laughing. Because I don’t care. I hope the guy’s face never heals!
Triggered by my laughing, Whitney reaches back to slap me again, but when she swings this time, I catch her arm by the wrist only a few inches away from my face. I glare at her for a moment, then I stand up and start to push her frail body backwards, into the kitchen. She tries to stand her ground, but her sandals stick on the carpet and come off as we enter the kitchen and her feet simply slide on the linoleum until her back slams against the refrigerator. With my anger reaching a tipping point, I wrap one hand around her throat.
“Tisk, tisk, Whitney,” I say quietly, still emphasizing her name instead of calling her my mother. There it is again—the quiet. What comes after the silence this time? “Let me assure you of something, Whitney.” I reach into my left pocket and pull out my trusty box cutter, revealing the blade that still has traces of Davon’s blood on the tip. “The only reason I’m not cutting an eternal smile into your flesh is because you’re my mother. You brought me into this world, although I believe you’ve forgotten that because of that poison you shoot into your veins. Wouldn’t it be a shame if I snatched you out of the world you brought me into?”
Whitney stares at me in shock as I place the blade on her right eye lid, forcing her to see me out of only her left eye.
“What’s the matter?” I continue. “You can’t see it? Maybe if you squint like you’re taking a vision test. Try it. Look at me, and see it clearly. I am what you made me. All the drugs you took while you were pregnant with me, all the abuse I suffered at your hands as a kid, all the abuse from my father before he died, all the times you sold me to get your damn medicine and made me watch you screw or suck some guy off to get me back—everything you ever did is what made me this way. Whatever happens in my life, just know that you are to blame.
“I did stab your dealer, and he cried like the tiniest baby bitch I’ve ever seen. And you know what else, I enjoyed it. I’m glad I stabbed him. It made me feel good, and knowing I did it still makes me feel good in this very moment. And if you ever hit me again . . .”
“What are you going to do, Solomon?” she interrupts as a tear slides down the cheek under her left eye. “Are you going to hurt me?”
“Oh I’m not gonna hurt you. Of course not. You’re my mother,” I say as a new smile forms on my lips. “I’m gonna hurt Davon. I’m gonna cut off all of his fingertips and all of the tips of his toes with this razorblade, and then send each piece to every dealer I know, so that all of them know never to sell to you. You’ll never have your precious medicine again. Now, be thankful that you’re my mother, because if you weren’t, who knows what would’ve happened after the silence.”
Whitney doesn’t say anything.
“I can’t hear you, Mother. You’re not being thankful enough. Aren’t you glad that you’re my mother?” She nods her head slowly, her face stricken with a fear I’ve never seen in her before. It’s like she’s seeing me for the very first time, and she’s terrified of what she sees. After she nods, I wink at her as I let her go, pick up my Eagles jacket off the couch, and walk out of the house.
I don’t have a soft side. I don’t even know exactly how or when I got this way, but I also don’t know how people walk around all day with happiness and love and trust in their hearts. It makes my head hurt thinking about how someone could allow themselves to love another human being. My mother never loved me. I’ve never been anything more than a burden to her, so that’s what love is to me—a burden. A burden that makes you weaker the deeper you swim into it. I know to stay far away from that. I don’t love people. I love power. The fear in the eyes of the bums at the trashcan the other day, the terror in the faces of the assholes I beat up in the alley, and even the sweet anxiety I saw in the eyes of my own mother tonight—I love it. That power is my one true love.
I walk down the streets of my neighborhood with exactly nowhere to go, thinking about how I have to make sure I never end up like Whitney. I can’t end up like my father either. He was a dealer like Davon, but he was killed when I was only three years old. I have two worthless parents—well, one now—but regardless of how worthless their lives were, I won’t suffer the same fate. Even now, walking down the street with my hands in the pockets of my black sweatpants, I’m already bigger than them. I’m known, and my only mission in this life is to make sure that I’m known everywhere. I’m going to be bigger than either of my parents ever were. Love won’t cripple me. My mind is set on obtaining power. Every broken down crack house I pass on these icy streets is a reminder to remain focused on making it out of this place as soon as possible. Every pothole I see cars slam into is a reminder that our government won’t do anything to help us poor people out of our situation. We have no help coming. We’re on our own. I’m on my own, and it’s on me to change this situation, by any means necessary. I will make it out of Strawberry Mansion.
“I was wondering if I’d see you again.”
The voice breaks my train of thought and I lift my head to face it. When our eyes meet, I’m shocked by the sight of the girl from the alley sitting on the curb in front of Aaron’s Arcade. I didn’t even know I had walked this far away from home. The sight of her is crazy to me because it’s cold as hell out here, and this girl is sitting in front of the arcade with a thick white jacket on that looks too fancy for anybody anywhere near this neighborhood. She looks like she has enough layers of clothes on to keep warm outside for a month straight, but through all of that, I see something else. Her face is ever-so-slightly discolored from the fight in the alley, probably a bruise being covered by makeup, and her cheeks are red from the cold, but she’s . . . pretty. Her blonde hair hangs over her shoulders like it was placed there just for me to marvel at, and her blue eyes seem bright and full of life as she looks up at me. I don’t know who she is, but I can’t deny the way she looks. She’s not the usual girl from Strawberry Mansion with missing teeth and a ragged, dreadful hairdo. She’s something else altogether, and it takes everything in me to ignore her full lips and keep walking.
When I walk past her without saying anything, the girl jumps up from her seated position and runs to catch up with me. As her footsteps draw nearer, I feel a strange excitement creeping into my chest.
“Where are you going?” she asks, looking up at me with those ice blue eyes.
I glare at her to let her know I’m not in the mood to talk, but she keeps staring, locking her eyes on mine, which makes me furrow my brow in confusion. Who the hell is this girl?
“I’m not going anywhere,” I reply as I face forward and march on my endless road.
“That doesn’t make any sense. You’re walking, so you gotta be walking somewhere.”
“I don’t have to be walking anywhere. I’m just walking.”
“Well when are you going to stop walking?”
“When I get tired of it. The more important question is, why are you following me?”
“Your name’s Solomon, right?” she asks, ignoring my question. “Do you remember me from a few days ago in the alley?”
“How could I forget,” I answer, still marching.
“My name’s Reina Wilde,” she says.
“Wilde,” I repeat. “I like the last name.”
“You do? What’s your last name again?”
I look to the side to glare at her. I swear she hasn’t taken her eyes off my face since she started following me.
“King. Solomon King. Now why are you following me, Reina Wilde?”
“You’re an interesting person, Solomon King.”
I let out a laugh. “I am not interesting.”
“I beg to differ. I’ve never seen anybody do anything like what I saw you do to those guys in that alley. That wasn’t a normal thing to do.”
“Yeah well, I’m not normal either.”
“No you’re not, and that’s why you’re interesting,” she says with a smile that I find myself staring at.
“You’re not from around here, are you?” I ask, rhetorically.
“Why do you ask that?”
“Because if you were, you’d know who I am, and if you knew who I was you wouldn’t be following me.”
“Why wouldn’t I want to follow my hero?”
I stop walking and face the blonde-hair, blue-eyed, adorable, beautiful, annoying little monster.
“I’m not a hero. I’m the worst kind of villain who you should stay far away from,” I tell her without the slightest hint of a smile. But Reina seems unfazed.
“I know you are, and I think I understand you more than you know.”
“Understand? You don’t even know me, little girl.”
“Oh, playing the older teenager card? I’m not impressed, I’m not discouraged, and I’m not afraid.”
“Really? Then what are you?”
“Intrigued. They don’t have boys like you where I’m from.”
“I see. And where’s that?”
Reina hesitates and exhales like she’s ashamed to say the answer. “I’m from Center City West,” she finally replies.
“Ah, that says a lot. Rich kid coming to see how we poor folks live down here in Strawberry Mansion?”
“That’s not it,” she counters. “I just needed a break from it all, and the first day I took the train down here, you saved me in that alley.”
“I didn’t do that for you.”
“Whatever, you know what I mean,” she snips, totally unafraid. “So when I skipped school and took the train down this time, it wasn’t just to get away. It was to see you.”
I look at Reina as she peers up at me, and I don’t know what to think of her. Who the hell would take a twenty-five-minute train ride on the hopes of seeing someone by chance? If it wasn’t for Whitney and her junkie drama, I’d still be at home enjoying my cereal, not wandering these chilly streets. There’s something really strange about this girl, and although it’s intriguing, I know that if she knew what was good for her, her little crush would be gone in a heartbeat.
“How old are you?” I ask.
“Fourteen, almost fifteen.”
“Right. I’m not the kind of guy you have a crush on, Reina. I’m not the kind of guy you take home to Momma.”
Reina lets out a laugh that echoes down the street and bounces off the walls of the train station I didn’t realize we’re standing in front of.
“That, you most definitely are not, you have no idea,” she admits. “Anyway, it took you too long to come on your walk to nowhere, and now that we’ve made our way back to the train station, I have to get back before my mom realizes I’m not in school again. That’s the last thing I need. Maybe you go on a walk earlier next time. See you later, Solomon King.”
I stuff my hands into my pockets and don’t say anything as I watch Reina turn on her heel and head for the train station, on her way back to Center City West, where I’m sure her life is a real life episode of The O.C. I don’t even have the luxury of having enough money to ride the damn train. Maybe I’ll change that soon. In the meantime, maybe I’ll make sure to pass by Aaron’s Arcade a little more often.
Once she’s gone, I shake off the lingering feeling of wonderment that Reina Wilde has left in her wake, and continue on my walk to nowhere, silently daring every person I pass to mess with me and have a dance with the devil.